This spring, I interned with ANN INC., the parent company of the brands Ann Taylor, Loft and Lou & Grey. My interest in the company started from a project in my Cause Marketing class last semester. The company has a strong corporate social responsibility platform, Responsibly Ann, which supports initiatives including healthcare, sustainability and ethical sourcing. I stopped by ANN INC’s table at LIM College’s fall career fair, and spoke to Amelia Holliday, a member of their HR team about my research on their work with BCRF for class. She encouraged me to apply, and the rest is history!
When I went into the ANN INC. building in Times Square Tower on my first day, I felt like this was a company I would be proud to work for and could fit in. At ANN INC, it’s all about “the fit”. They want employees to be passionate about their work as much as everything else in their life. I was placed in the Public Relations department at Ann Taylor. The team is very small and includes a Senior Public Relations Manager, Public Relations Coordinator and a full-time freelancer. The PR Coordinator, Gabrielle, actually graduated from LIM and did her internship at Ann Taylor as well! I was quickly adopted into this team, and given my own set of responsibilities and tasks. Unlike many internships, I wasn’t fetching coffee or only doing administrative work. I was a functional part of their team, and had my hands in all of the projects that they had going on.
In PR, there is no such thing as a normal day. At any given moment, you may need to pull a rush request for an editor, or create a press release for an upcoming event. In PR, you are the main connection between the brand to editors and the public. My responsibilities included anything from monitoring and clipping press hits, sample trafficking, creating impressions reports, pulling requests from the closet and assisting in pitching, pr strategy and event planning processes. My favorite responsibility was handling requests from magazines for features. An editor will send a request for specific products or a look or theme for the feature. My job is to go into the sample closet and get the specific pieces they ask for, or curate and style looks from our collections based on the theme of the shoot. Then I will show one of my supervisors, and we go through the looks together to make selects that are then sent over to the editor.
The biggest project I assisted with this semester was the press event for Ann Taylor’s Fall 2017 Collection. The goal of a press event is to showcase the collection to editors, in hopes that they will feature the pieces. During one of the first weeks of my internship, I was asked to pitch a few hotels located downtown where the event would be located. The team ended up picking one of my selects, 11 Howard Hotel, as the location for the event! Throughout the semester, I helped check in the Fall samples from production. This is vital because one of each item from the collection needs to be present at the event. This is also important for rack reviews, where the merchants go through and tell the team what changes are being made to each of the pieces. At ANN INC. the clothing is heavily analyzed by the merchant team to make sure it is of the best quality, and a style that our client will like. I also assisted in writing the email invitation, organizing the guest list of editors and face charts, so each member of our team knew who the editor was, and which publication they were with. The day of the event was such a rush. I was face to face with editors from my favorite magazines and websites. Our team had to ensure that the suite looked its best when the editors walked through, and they really understand the aesthetic and inspiration behind the collection.
My internship at Ann Taylor just ended, and I didn’t want to leave ! My experience with their team was invaluable, and I really saw what it was like to work in PR for a strong company such as ANN INC. If I end up pursuing public relations as a career, it will be due to my work with this team. All of the Ann Taylor PR team are absolute #girlbosses and have amazing work ethics. I could not have had a better team to learn the ropes of PR from, and I am so grateful!